Episode 184 Transcript
SUMMARY:
Fat acceptance and stigmatization with Tigris Osbourne. 0:00
Intersectionality and inclusivity in a historical civil rights organization. 3:14
Fat acceptance and allyship in a predominantly white organization. 9:39
Fat acceptance and activism. 15:43
Fat Liberation Conference and its Joyful Atmosphere. 20:19
Fat-friendly events and community support. 23:09
Weight loss drugs and their potential coverage by national healthcare systems. 30:54
Weight loss and body autonomy. 34:27
Obesity advocacy and pharmaceutical funding. 37:27
Weight stigma and healthcare advocacy. 43:29
Pharmaceutical companies' role in obesity and weight loss. 46:20
Obesity as a disease and its stigmatization. 49:11
Obesity and pharmaceutical industry manipulation. 56:09
Pharmaceutical industry influence in health advocacy. 59:21
Obesity and weight stigma, including height. 1:02:19
Body size discrimination and legal protections. 1:09:17
Fat liberation and media representation. 1:12:44
Pharmaceutical industry influence in healthcare policy. 1:16:12
Body positivity and community redemption. 1:22:56
Fat activism and legislation. 1:27:33
Read the transcript alongside the audio.
You're listening to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I'm your host, Vinny Welsby. Today we're talking about organized anti-fat fuckery with Tigress Osborn let's do it.
Welcome to this special episode where we have a guest. Oh my god, I'm so excited. We're gonna just get straight into it and introduce tigers to you. Hello, tigers. Welcome to the show.
Tigress 0:41
Hello.
Vinny Welsby 0:43
How you doing?
Tigress 0:45
I'm so excited to be here.
Vinny Welsby 0:47
How excited on a scale of one to 1042. Yeah. Easing love it for what you do. Now, obviously, Tigress you're an icon to me, and I know all about you. But for those who don't know who you are scandalous, how can they not know who you are. But for those who don't know who you are, can you give us an intro to you?
Tigress 1:11
Sure, I'm Tigress I use she her pronouns. I I live in the southwestern United States. And I am the Executive Director of NASA, which is the National Association to Advance fat acceptance. And NASA is the oldest documented fat rights organization started in 1969. So we're turning 55 this year. And we work on making the world a better place for fat people. We unapologetically use the F word in doing that work. Some of the other stuff we're talking about today makes me want to use up the F word. But by this I mean fat, we unapologetically use the word fat in our work, because we want to de stigmatize that work and really have people thinking about fat as just a natural part of human diversity, and one that should be protected from discrimination socially, legally, culturally, all of that.
Vinny Welsby 2:04
Ah, and how long have you been at NASA?
Tigress 2:07
I have been at NASA as well. So I did my first volunteer work with NASA in 2012, when they invited me to produce a fashion show at one of their conferences. I used to run a plus sized nightclub event in Oakland, California called full figure entertainment. And I had this full figure Friday parties, it was a hip hop party, it was like a black Senator at Oakland Hip Hop party, but with the intention of being like a good welcoming, affirming space for fat folks, of factions of all genders, we had a lot of focus on like, you know, fat ladies and the people who like fat ladies, but but we really did try to make it a gender inclusive environment and a welcoming environment to you know, like centering fat black woman, but and, and fat women of color, but like having, you know, whoever wants to come and do that and be with us and party with us. Great. And we were, we really aim to be a very fashion forward club. And so Nafa invited me when they were in San Francisco across the bridge, to produce a fashion show at one of their conventions. And so I did that for them a couple of years. We went when we went to that, I guess, the next year to do it there. And then about a year and a half after that, I think it was they invited me to join the board. So I came onto the board in what would that make that I came onto the board in 2015? Is that right? I think that's right. And then I became the board chair in 2021. And then last year, I was named the executive director. This is the first time we've had an executive director at about 20 years. So you know, it's a big a big sign of, you know, Rhian reinvigorating the organization and also rebuilding infrastructure and just, you know, aiming for longevity and all of that stuff. Mm hmm.
Vinny Welsby 3:54
It really feels like in the last couple of years that NASA has been hitting it. But every you're everywhere. You're just leading the way and it just feels really I'm so excited that you're at the helm. You just you it is it's a different era
Tigress 4:09
for NASA, in that, you know, Neff has been many things to many people over it's, you know, five and a half decade history. But but it's one of the things that wasn't was intersectional. And so I really have worked on that shift in the last last few years, especially but I would say, you know, since I came onto the board, really trying to think about like, who are the fat folks who don't feel comfortable here and why don't they or who don't feel interested in this and why don't they? And it's, it's okay, if your NAP doesn't have to be everybody's cup of tea, but everybody should feel welcome at the tea party. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Well, we've Um, we've just been working really hard at that and I'm part of it is because I couldn't be part of an organization that wasn't trying harder than if I had been trying to be intersectional for folks who are listening that don't know me. I am Um, I, you know, I'm a black woman with mixed race heritage, but a really strong black identity. And I was, you know, I was living in the Bay Area, I was doing diversity education, we just called it that at that time, but today people would call it D, I work, diversity, equity and inclusion work. And I was doing that as my day job at a, at a private school, in the, in the Bay Area. And, you know, I just had this life where like, and I was teaching Women's Studies, and so I was talking about gender issues all the time and race and, and in, you know, some of my work as a DI practitioner was during the Occupy movement. So we were talking about class a lot. So I was having these days that were like, steeped in talking about systemic injustice and identity. And then I wanted my fat rights work to also feel like that. And like I said, my club, then my, the nightclub that I was event that I was doing, had grown out of going to other plus size positive events, but not feeling as welcomed at those events, as a black woman with black friends coming with me, right? Like, I'm, you know, I'm light skinned, I have that privilege. There were some of those events. I was like, you're fine, you know, but, you know, but I didn't feel like what, but okay, but I need everybody should be fine. Right? I need to be able to bring my other friends here with me and have us all have a good time in an environment that feels safe and welcoming. And so like I was doing that work in other spaces, because when I was asked to join the board of Napa, I just knew Nafa as this, like, historic Civil Rights Organization, it was like, I was super honored to be asked to join the board. And then I got there. And it was like, Well, hold on, don't want to do this. If this people aren't, if these folks are not understanding, look, I'm having the same dynamic that I was having at the club, you know, I had, you know, had to start my own thing, because the people at the other places, were not, I wasn't using the word intersexual. Enough, but that's what it was. Right. And so I had the same, you know, like, it was the same experience at NASA. And luckily, like, as we started to make some shifts, that we attract even more people who are committed to that, and we make sure that the folks that we are bringing on in leadership positions are committed to that whatever their own personal identities are, that they are committed to intersectionality that they are thinking about, you know, centering the, the the folks with the most, you know, historic history of systemic disenfranchisement disenfranchised. And so we are seeing, you know, a lot more. First of all, we're the it's the first time, I think, I think it's the first time in the history of the organization, that we have an all fat board. And you there's an influx, I mean, for the last week, in the era where I've been on the blouse,
Vinny Welsby 7:43
I just presumed that everyone was always fat on the Nafa board. No, because
Tigress 7:48
there's a long history of the involvement of allies and folks who identify with the term fat admirer. Yeah, like because
Vinny Welsby 7:55
wasn't Nafa started by Bill Fabri. And new Louderback who are too white? Yes. Thanks. Nice, man.
Tigress 8:02
Yeah, well, Lou Louderback, I think was a smaller fat guy. But, but Bill was a thin man and a very thin man, then I mean, Bill will tell you now, Bill favori, who is Bill is credited as the designated founder, because he only worked on the organization together. And in fact, they delayed the opening of the organization to work on some of the editing of what became loose lauterbach's book fat power, which is kind of credited as being the first like, rights published book. The so like, so what happened is that so here's the story, because I actually love this anecdote. And I think it's, I think of Bill as a person who is, you know, who, who has both has a strong identity as a fat admirer. And he is the person that you know, people say credited, He is credited with coining that phrase fat admirer versus some of the other euphemisms that were being used like chubby chaser, and things like that. And he has a strong identity as a fat admirer. And I know that that's controversial for a lot of people, especially in fat liberation circles, like is that, you know, is it admiration? Is it fetishizing? Is it like, what is you know, were they explaining fat women? Like what is what does it all mean? In my experience with Bill, you know, Bill is 81 years old, still actively trying to stay engaged in like social media dialogues about fat, fat rights and things like that. And he would say that technically now he's like, medically fat or whatever, like, you know, we were going to talk a little bit I think about the flaws and how we label people as fat medically, but you know, but he was he was a young, thin engineer, like he had some economic privilege. He's a white guy. He's like, you know, the, the guy with cultural power when he serves this organization. But his wife is a fat Jewish woman who he adores and it's it's just fun to edit it to me. It's touching to listen to Bill talk about his wife and the other women he's had like Nobody was not like a player like this, this, this, these ideas sometimes that like, you know, these guys started this organization, so they could just get with a lot of fat ladies and like, there were guys who were attracted to the organization for that reason that is not Whiteville, and together with Lou and the handful of other people who founded Nafa. That is not what it wasn't started as a like, look for somebody to go on dates with and fuck, but like, but there, I mean, there was a period in nafas history where there was like Nafa date, which was a sort of like a dating service to help people meet each other, and there was a lot of fat in my ears hanging around. And some of them were just like, you know, I'd like just Goldstar toxic masculinity do. Terrible, but not all of them were and I just like, it's always a weird position for me as a, as a, you know, a black American woman to just be like, I want to talk about how great this white guy is, I actually think Bill favorite is his intentions were pure. And I know that the key was, he loved his wife, and he was seeing, not just the way internalized anti fatness was affecting her, but also the way systemic anti fat in this was affecting her. And he wanted to do something about that he wanted to try to make cultural change for her and people like her. And the road to hell is often paved with good intentions. So along the way, was everything perfectly executed. No. And in fact, Bill will tell you, he was part of the problem in terms of lack of intersectionality naffaa. Because he thought the best thing to do was focus on one issue. So like, why would we be talking about race? That's not what we're experts in? We're experts in fat. And like, that sounds good. Especially if you're only saying it to the other white people, if you're saying it to somebody who is having a daily experience of being, you know, racialized and then systemically discriminated against. Maybe the why should we talk about race question has a different answer than it has for you, white men or white women who are experiencing anti fatness as the primary area of your discrimination, right. So like, it's all a complicated history. But I think that you know, but those but the mix of people who were at that first meeting is some fat people and some some people. Yeah, it's all it appears to be all white people. I mean, there could be some folks who are like white passing and have other identities or whatever. But like, hearing the stories and seeing the photos, you know, the early days of Nafa are pretty white, and you know, your shins white when you can kind of go like, Oh, well, there was that one lady. I think she was Puerto Rican. in like, a year history. Right, like,
Vinny Welsby 12:45
so? Yeah.
Tigress 12:48
It's like, it's never as a mixed bag across the board. But like, I'm like, across the years, right? And I'm sure it's a mixed bag to some people now, like you are like, Yay, tiger says leadership. And I'm sure that there's somebody else out there was like, What is this black woman doing to our organization or whatever. So like, this is what it is today. Right? It's a black led organization. And not just led by a black person, but by a black person, who also spent a large part of her professional life. Talking about race. Yeah, yeah, talking about class talking about gender, talking about sexual orientation. And that is a different era. But also, there aren't any fat admirers or thin allies on our leadership team right now. And that doesn't mean that there's no space for the you know, for allies or people who are, you know, the sort of alternative terms we use in social justice like accomplices, or what is there's another one that people often use agitators? Like, there are these other eight words that feel stronger than ally because Ally has been so watered down, and so misused by people who self designated as allies. I still use allies, because one of the things we try to do at NASA is reach folks who are not already steeped in social justice movement, so that we can bring them along. And I mean, like, hopefully, I have no embarrassment, saying, like, hopefully radicalize them around fat liberation. We are not the most radical space, right? Like we are, you know, a somewhat moderate space, like we're radical compared to mainstream culture, just the fact that we use the word fat is radical compared to mainstream culture. Right. But in fact, liberation sort of echo system, right? I think. So the folks that fat rose use the term echo system to talk about, like, where all the different fat organizations kind of go, you know, in a constellation, yes, that's a mixed metaphor, if I say echo system and constellation, but like, I think of constellation as the term. But anyway, that we're not the most radical organization, right? And the most radical will have organizations that are only even loosely called organizations because they're so non hierarchical that it's just like a For a kind of gathering or grouping or whatever, but, you know, we want to be and I like to think of us as like the gateway drug liberation. And, and you know, and in that space, if I just say like, I want you to come in and be an accomplice, people don't understand what that means. But if I say, I'm gonna be an ally, they understand what that means. And then the while they are learning how to be an ally, they can learn how to be an accomplice, right? They can learn how to be a privilege trader. But they don't come in there. Right? Yeah, if they were, they're coming in. If you're coming in that hot, you probably gonna skip right over Nafa to some other organization. And that's, you know, and that's fine.
Vinny Welsby 15:43
So let's talk about our recent interaction. We saw each other in the facts, what was it called? Fat, fat, fat on fat calm. Thank you. Amazing conference. And I'm so pleased that I was there the day that you were there. Well, you were there for the whole weekend, probably. But I was there for the whole time. Yeah, I was only there for a day anyway. And so we finally got to meet in person, and I ate some of your candy on your table. And you said, Let's do a podcast episode together. And I was like, fuck, yes. And you were talking on you were the keynote. And I was on a panel that happens to be at the same time, but him minutes later. So I got the first 10 minutes of your talk. And I think I've seen maybe bits of it before because I went to I went to see you talk at the that you had told me about. You were doing a talk for legal professionals. And so I pretended to be a legal professional and listen to your talk. Anyway, you also told me about some Tom fuckery that is happening recently, which boils my pass. And so we're going to talk today so tell me, what is what is this what's going on?
Tigress 17:04
Before we get to the term fuckery. Um, let's just talk a little bit about fat con, if that's okay with you, because I think like, people have never been to a gathering of fat positive people. And it's so powerful. And like the fat con in Seattle is just called fat con in Philadelphia a few months before that they had one called filly fat con. Well, there have been fat gatherings. But I mean, again, I'm gonna say documented here, because the way that we sort of look at the historical record and say, What was the first of something is not always accurate to what, like what humans were actually doing in ways that we don't acknowledge as like a formal organization. But I will just say like the first Nafa conference was in 1970. And it was, I think, it was about 100 people at that first conference. And in the years after 1970, there are all these organizations that are feminist collectives. There are eventually there's no lose, which started as the National Organization of lesbians of size and is now like a queer centered like pan queer, queer centered fat rights organiser fat activist organization, and a no lose had epic conferences for years that people who were at those, you know, talk about how life changing they were, there are these social events called BB W bashes. And again, the BB W was one of those terms that like some people are like is that fetishizing and that other people are like, I really identify with this term, as you know how I see myself. And whatever you feel about the terminology. Those gatherings happen all over the country every year, and the usually the biggest ones are the summer ones in Las Vegas, and they draw hundreds of fat people. There's a batch, there's an event called bigger Vegas, that's kind of like a Gaiman's equivalent of the btw bashes, which actually might predate the btw like birth and birth, which is a gay men's organization used to have these big annual gatherings. So like, I hear some folks who are newer to fat live world who were at Fat con talking about it as like, finally now there's a convention for fat people and like, now, there's a convention for you as a fat person, but there's actually 50 of conventions for fat people, right? And so it's but it's really, really powerful. And if you've never been to one, and you have the opportunity, even a virtual gathering like this, like I was in a meeting with someone, we got a panel of folks who are going to be on our webinar to talk about the nobody is disposable project, which is a collective of organizations and leaders who are working first in California. And then there were some folks in Canada, working on, you know, in 2020, working on things like vaccine access for people in larger bodies, right. And this really amazing collective but one of the people who joined us for that panel was like, this is the first time in my life I've ever been in a gathering with only fat people. That was a virtual space with like, 10 of us So see how powerful that is? In a virtual space and in a real life space when it's 100 people Yeah, and it's two people when it's a five and I think the biggest, like bigger Vegas last year the Gameboy one. I think they sold out three hotels in
Vinny Welsby 20:18
Vegas. Wow. Yeah. Like, they're
Tigress 20:21
these, you know, like, some of those were the other guys who just come because they want to, you know, hit on the fat guys, but like, you know, this summer, but it's like, still, that still leaves hundreds of fat guys together, right? Like, and fat con didn't have any elements of like, I mean, I'm sure there were folks enjoying each other's company in all the way I
Vinny Welsby 20:40
did always, I'm
Tigress 20:43
sure. But it didn't officially have any elements of like, this is a hookup spot for you know, whatever. You know, it really was. It really was a fat liberation conference. It wasn't just, it feels
Vinny Welsby 20:57
so joyful, like just to be in the company of other fat people. And that maybe there's like one straight size person, but pretty much everyone is fat. And it's just just joy and excitement and giddiness and playfulness. And just goodness all around.
Tigress 21:17
Yeah, it hadn't been had all these great workshops. It had I wasn't the there were I think there were three keynotes, Bob the not Bob, the drag queen, the other one world famous Bob. Yeah. And there was another keynote, and I'm blanking on who it is. I'm so sorry, who whoever you were, that I went to your thing? I just why can I not think of it right now. But was there another keynote? Or was it just the fashion show was like the third everybody event, whatever it is, there was a fashion show. There were keynotes there were these amazing workshops. There was this great vendor fair. And it was running in sync with a fat burlesque festival that was happening, you know, produced by the same, the same team. And so like, there are all these different ways that you're right, like all these different ways to just celebrate fat joy. Like there's this like, just unapologetic spirit of fatness. And you know, you could see performers and you could say like, it was just really, really fantastic. And it was really fantastic for me as somebody who's been to some of those other kinds of events like this was a my rodeo when it comes to just being in a room with 100 Fat people. Yeah, but it was a really, really well done event. And I loved seeing the love between that team and the Philly fat con team because that could have just like, oh, we do an art thing over here. Now y'all have to do a thing over there. There was none of the Seattle team went out to Philly for there's the Philly team came out to Seattle for that one. And I
Vinny Welsby 22:39
was I listened to the a panel where they both talked about what it was like to run. And at the end, the Philly fat con people were saying, Listen, if you want to go do a fat con in your city, come Come hit us up and we'll help you organize that con wherever we're not owning the name. Just go do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 23:01
Exactly. And pucks the, you know, the sort of person who fat con in Seattle was their brainchild. Same thing at the you know, at the closing ceremony of the Seattle one. So like, I love that I love that kind of like, you know, mutual community support like we don't like that's one of the things that when I was a nightclub promoter, before I started my party, I took the people who ran the two other plus sized parties in OIC in the Bay Area. I took them out to dinner to talk about like, how I want to do this in like a mutually supportive way. Like, I'm going to do my party on Friday night. So it's never going to interfere with your Saturday night party. How can we support each other, we need more options for plus sized people not to be fighting with each other. But they were fighting each other so bad. I couldn't have that dinner with them together. No, I had to take the one couple out and the other guy out separately because they would not sit. So you know, and whatever nightlife is not necessarily a space where the politics of like community support are at the forefront. Right. So I was doing a little bit differently and like I had, you know, I will sometimes talk about like I had a mission and value statement as a nightclub party. That's right. So so but I love seeing that too with I love seeing that too with the teams that were producing those two events and I think we are going to see a lot more of them you know and we the same thing is true with like I've seen that with a lot of the folks who plan clothing swaps like you know what do you want to learn from me about how to plan a clothing swap where you are you know the pool parties and stuff like there's a there's this idea to this is another one of those sort of know your history places where they there's this idea that like Pool Party started when we all saw it on shrill and like oh yeah. Killer when we all saw it on shrill but that party to me looks like everything I've ever seen about se Golden's golden confidence pool parties, which had been happening for years before that. And also there, there have been pool parties at bashes and naffaa conventions and no lose for decades, like so the party is not a new thing. But it is growing differently and spreading differently right now. And some of that is because like that, like people get inspired by that scene and shrill. But also, like, you know, part of the reason it can be successful is that there are folks who have done a good one who are willing to say, here's how we made it good. And there are folks who've done, you know, tried to do one, and it didn't turn out so well who are willing to say, here's what we wish we had known. And when we share knowledge and community like that, then we all get better. Like we have more think there's not enough fat friendly stuff in the world for us to be fighting with each other about, you know, about like it like the competition should all be like crystal crystal from the Big Sexy chat. There's a way she says it like I I don't have competitors. I have compatriots or something like that. She's got a, she says, y'all should also listen to the Big Sexy chat podcast because that's another really great. We have so many podcasts in our community. We Oh, many. I just started really, really listening to podcasts last year. And there was there was a point where I was just 20 hours a week of podcasts. And still feeling like I can't get to all the cool sounds. No,
Vinny Welsby 26:29
no, there's weird luck. We're so lucky. We're so lucky.
Tigress 26:33
Yeah. But anyway, so I know you wanted to, you want to get to the stuff we hate that I just like the fat comics.
Vinny Welsby 26:43
Yeah. And that's a good reminder for people like I'm lucky I'm in Vancouver, we have that pool parties. We have fat gatherings, we have fat clothing swaps. I'm lucky in Vancouver. But if you are in a city that doesn't have any of that, why not do it yourself? Why not bring? Why not do a pool party and invite some fatties, you know, or, you know, ask other people how they exactly like what you just said, Tigris, how they've seen success doing this thing, or even doing a fat con. Oh, amazing. Because the thing is, like, you've
Speaker 1 27:15
got the if you've got the interest, you got the passion, you've got some of the skills and you can assemble a team of people who have the skills, you can do a fat con. Yeah, right? You can do you can definitely do a clothing swap, you can definitely do a meet up a picnic in the park, you can definitely do a pool party. I mean, you know, some of those things, including the conventions, we need to be thinking more about the sort of like, are we being consistent with masking? Are we making sure it's a safe environment for folks? Like, there's no yeah, there's a lot of passion. There's, there's a lot of excitement for us to gather in person. And there's a lot of passion from folks who cannot gather in person because of their own health needs, because of their beliefs about community support around health, like whatever who are just not going to come to in person things unless they are fully masked. And they're going to be people who are not going to come to in person things even if they are fully masked. And in fact community where travel is such a just you know, travesty for so many of us in so many ways. Getting to an event, even when it's in your own location is hard enough, getting to one that's in another part of the country is really hard. So it's really important thing for us to continue to do virtual events. And it's really important for all of the organizers who are creating these events, to think about community safety, and to think about accessibility and to think about the fact disabled people who want to come to these events and like all of that accessibility stuff in as many of the ways as we can hold. And also for us to still do virtual events. And this is why naffaa has continued to really invest in our webinar program or our virtual event program. We classic webinar series where we it's kind of like this like well, I just get to talk to cool fat people who are doing great stuff like we have one coming up with Jeff Jenkins from the National Geographic show Never Say Never we have one coming up with Jessica Wilson who wrote a book about black women's narratives about our bodies like we have, we were going to have grief cat who performed at Fat con, you know, to make some stuff out of one of our virtual events and we have like a virtual byo brunch, you know, brunch series just have fat entertainers and we have this really cool brunch team that like we just we have a lot of virtual stuff because no matter how much we work really hard to make in person stuff accessible. There are some people who just like travel is prohibitive for whatever reason or gathering together it's prohibitive. And we don't when we had all this great virtual bonding over you know, I thought at what we thought of as the height of the pandemic and and then a lot of places just abandon it as soon as we could be together in person or as soon as we Some people felt we together person so like I just like, oh, no, I'm on my soapbox about that a little bit. But I do want us as I think a lot about it in our event planning at NASA, like, what? Where are the thresholds of like, you know, we can't do it unless we do it this way. Do we, you know, have a, you know, out of virtual track, I love the hybrid events that are having a thing in person and a virtual track, like the International weight stigma conference last year, out of virtual tract, and so, and will again this year and, and so, you know, you can hear from, like these researchers and scholars and increasingly more just fat liberationist At that conference, you can do it, you don't have to go to Colchester, England to do it, you can do it from because the virtual track is available. So like, I want us to be thinking about those accessibility things a lot as we think about how we build community and who gets included and who gets left out. And we're not going to get perfect all the time. And we're not going to please everybody. But it should always be at the forefront of our thinking about it. Yeah, I don't know how I tangental myself into that. Every now so
Vinny Welsby 31:08
Tom fog Ray, this is right, two o word care. And they've they've come up with the O word Bill of Rights. And like a trigger warning, we're probably going to slip and say the O words. So just like a heads up on that. So what is going on what's what's the crack what's happening.
Speaker 1 31:29
So, I mean, what's happening is Big Pharma is orchestrating a plan to green public support for in theory, weight stigma prevention, but in reality, political power to try to convince the US government in particular, but also other governments around the world, to include weight loss, drugs and other procedures in whatever their national insurance programs are. So here in the US, they're trying to get these drugs covered by Medicare. And they're trying to get these drugs covered by Medicare, because that would give a huge amount of access to many, many people who can't afford the drugs at their list price now, and we're talking about the, the GLP, one agonist drugs, the you know, people know it as ozempic ozempic is actually a diabetes drug. And we'll go V, which is the same drug as it was a big essentially, but is approved at a higher dose specifically for the purpose of weight loss is actually the weight loss drug, but I feel like like that horse is out of the bar, people just know it as ozempic They're gonna call every brands, every pharmaceutical companies drug ozempic, they're gonna call it you know, it's like, Kleenex, right? Like, you just did what is called now, but, but it's not actually was. But anyway, there, you know, if you can get when you read articles or headlines, because let's face it, some of us only read the headlines, sometimes about how many billions and billions of dollars ozempic is going to make in the next, you know, five to seven years, part of that calculation is based on the idea that national healthcare systems, the NHS in Britain and Medicare in the US will be covering the drug, and that not only will that open up that market, it will also force private insurance companies to have to cover the drug. And so then you got everybody's insurance covering the drugs, right now, there's a limited amount of weight loss, procedure, pharmaceuticals, therapy, whatever, that are covered by most insurance programs, if any, your insurance might not cover anything at all related to weight loss. And yeah, and just as just as Vinny warned that, like, I probably will use the the old words here in in the context of protesting these things, right, I always tell people that there are three situations in which I will use the words one is to talk about the rapper, Heavy D, who called himself the overweight lover and who is iconic and amazing. So, I will use us overweight LeBrons in the house talk about having, I will use the word obesity in terms of like a sort of middle fingers up to the concept of glorifying obesity and then actually glorifying myself as, as a labeled as obese person. So I will use it in that context. And then I will use it in critique of the systems that have medicalized body size, and use it as the disease label. So in a conversation like this, like, I'm not going to use it to talk about myself, I'm not gonna be like, as a person living with obesity, blah, blah, blah. But in the, in the context of talking about these, I'm just gonna say it and also just want to be clear that in the context of talking about the coverage of weight loss, anything, anything that's kind of labeled weight management, which we would actually activist fat advocates would actually call that weight cycling, not weight management, but the medical industrial complex calls it weight management, I'm going to use that term So as we talk about it a little bit, but just know our process of that term. When we talk about weight management possibilities, or at least the things that are presented to us that way as weight management possibilities, it is for me as a fat liberationists. And for me as the person, you know, guiding Nafa, we hold the fat liberationist belief in body autonomy, which means everybody has the right to make the decision to pursue weight loss if they choose to in their body. And we're not trying to prevent you. Like, I'm not trying to automatically prevent anyone from from pursuing intentional weight loss, what we are trying to do is make sure that you are doing that with truly informed consent. And your consent is not informed, if most of the things you are being told about what obesity is, as a disease are, are presented to you at the orchestration of people who benefit from selling you things to treat that disease. So, so like these, these so called weight loss drug is right, or at least Yeah, they make people lose weight. So they are weight loss drugs that is accurate. And you know, and other kinds of drugs being abused as weight loss drugs. But they're like the presentation of them as a solution to all your health problems, without adequately presenting to almost any of you, the potential complications to your health problems that are caused by them is part of the problem. And so here we go back to the right to obesity care organization. This is an umbrella organization that is led by the National Consumer Alliance and the National Council on Aging here in the US. And they launched earlier this week, and obesity Bill of Rights. So folks might be familiar with the concept of a patient's bill of rights, which is like a list of like, this is how your doctor should not engage in conflict, dealing with your health, basically, you know, you deserve to be treated with respect, you deserve to be given appropriate information to make the decisions that you need to make about your health, you deserve to, you know, have coverage of the procedures that you need to have a say in what procedures are being done to you like, it's that kind of stuff, right. And I think the first Patient's Bill of Rights came out in the 70s. And then there are all of these sort of like, you know, similarly structured kind of bills of rights Nafa had a house had a health care bill of rights, I actually probably will put it up on on our website, again, in the wake of all this nonsense, just as evidence that like, we cared about this, because we've always cared about fat people. We didn't just care about what we recognize the fact people are an even bigger market than we thought they were. Right. But
Vinny Welsby 37:54
I already have it on the website, because I've seen it, it was from like, 2017. Right? Yeah,
Speaker 1 37:59
the original version was actually from 2008. And I haven't been able to find whether we had a version before 2008. But so I know it goes back to at least 2008 with us, and then it was updated in 2017. And I think, you know, our board together will give it a 2024 Refresh soon because the What's complicated about the obesity bill of rights that this coalition has released is well, first of all, the framing of it is just a lie, because they are framing it as like a grassroots effort from people in our communities who want to take better care of their friends and loved ones who are living with the disease of OPI, the living with the complicated chronic disease of obesity,
Vinny Welsby 38:45
lifelong
Speaker 1 38:46
recovery, chronic in their chronic. So that's how they would say it. It is not a grassroots anything. Nothing that is sponsored, like we don't even call our roots grass work. And like NASA has a long history. And I'm really proud of the reach that we do have as an organization that has very limited resources. But fat liberation work, including nafas work is some of the most underfunded social justice work in the world. And we have an annual budget that is like pennies on the 1000s compared to these obesity advocacy organizations. Hmm. Like if you're only listening and not watching this on YouTube, like I'm over here doing all the air quotes about these organizations calling themselves advocates. They're advocating for something. But what they're advocating for is a little different than what they tell us they're advocating for. And so like we don't refer to our work as grassroots. So how is a coalition that is supported by 35 organizations, including major health organizations, the American Academy of dietetics and nutrition the the national national council on aging in the National Consumer Council are the ones that made it and major obesity quote unquote advocacy organizations that are funded by pharmaceutical companies and to commercial diet cut the two biggest commercial diet companies in the world Weight Watchers and neum have signed on to this obesity Bill of Rights. How in all of the EFS how an all all the EFS in every alphabet that exist. Is that a grassroots coalition? There are billions and billions and billions of dollars available to that coalition. And certainly there are millions in action. The National Council on Aging, who does great work around other elder care things is like Novo Nordisk is one of their main funders. And you can like this is publicly available. You look at their annual report and see that Novo Nordisk was one of their main funders.
Vinny Welsby 40:58
Why is that? Why what's the connection that Novo Nordisk is making with with aging and they just like there's fat old people, let's get them to.
Speaker 1 41:06
This is what's funny about that. So for folks who don't know, Novo Nordisk is the manufacturer of ozempic and Wigo v. So there are other pharmaceutical companies involved in this like, arms race for who makes the most money off of fat people, most notably, probably is Eli Lilly, which does, you know, which is also developing their own tomorrow and just Zapatero? Yeah, the whole they have their whole own arm of doing this same kind of thing. So like, Novo Nordisk, if McDonald's, Eli Lilly is at Burger King, you know, Abbott, is one of the major funders of the American Academy of dietetics. And Abbott is, as far as I can see, not making a drug right now. But they make some other like, diabetes management stuff that they're like, Hey, if you're using that drug, it works even better if you use it along with our diabetes, like, money it for all of these, like manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, and other kinds of, you know, medical aids, right. And the reason that they are particularly focused on elders right now is because elders as a cultural group, do not always have power in this country, but elders as a political group, as a voting group, that's a big deal. And if what you're trying to do is get states and ultimately the federal government to mandate that Medicare cover these drugs, or that private insurance to cover these drugs, one of the best ways to do that is to get the people who are politically engaged and will throw their weight around, so to speak, and we'll throw their age around in terms of politics, to to like to create public support for that happening. If you have a bunch of demand from elders on Medicare, that why isn't my Medicare covering this? Why isn't my Medicare covering this? That's actually a really important political voice? Like, does it just automatically happen magically? No, you also have to dump a bunch of money directly on politicians, and you have to get a bunch of state level people to buy in, you know, there are states all over the US that have introduced legislation that is either to, you know, get their state healthcare system to cover these these drugs, sometimes in conjunction with other procedures, sometimes just pitched as like diabetes management, even when you're taking it exclusively for the weight loss part, not for the diabetes part. But like, there's a variety of strategies here. But the big part of the bottom line is that like, there's a variety of strategies here. And when you scratch the surface of any of them, Novo Nordisk is behind the funding of many of them, right, presented as grassroots strategies. You know, they're presented as grassroots strategies, and they're increasingly presented as grassroots strategies that not only protect elders, but also protect black and brown communities, because denying obesity care to poor black and brown people is a form of systemic racism according to these people. So, you know, denying, like when they don't have a framework like we have, which is our, you know, our framework is anti fatness is creating some of the health crises that we see in poor communities, black and brown people, like economically disadvantaged communities, black and brown communities, you know, and, you know, like rural communities, like some of the anti fatness, as part of that crisis, it's not the fat itself. Yeah, it's the way wracked with fat people. But what these organizations argue is, yes, we agree with you. It's the way we interact with fat people, we need to be much nicer and more respectful to fat people. But our goal is, please be nice and respectful to me because you should be nice and respectful to me. And there is please be nice and respectful to the fat people, because otherwise we will scare them away from our expensive treatments. Yeah, we we got to get them into the Medical Office so that we can get the money. And it's like we don't even have to get their money anymore if we can get their insurance company's money.
Vinny Welsby 45:07
It just, it just makes me so fucking mad that Novo and Eli Lilly and anyone that's that's peddling weight loss, that they've they've glommed on to social justice movements, because they know people are getting smart to their bullshit. And so they're like, how can we confuse them? And so how is someone going to say, Oh, so you're so you're denying it to these poor black communities to these older fat people, you're an evil person by denying them the care that they want, and they deserve? And so how is someone going to argue that and say, I'm not racist? I'm not gonna hurt you. So just go along with it because they think it's a good idea. Well, and it's
Speaker 1 45:53
working right, they're gaining traction with these arguments. And they've been doing a weight sort of weight stigma awareness campaign, the major obesity advocacy, again, in quotation marks organizations have been doing weight stigma awareness for at least five years now in really obvious ways. And from before that, because they want fat patients, clients, customers, whatever to see them as their advocates. We are doing this for you because we care about you. The obesity Action Coalition, which has which gets almost all of its funding from a combination of diet pharma companies, or you know, pharma companies that make diet drugs, Novo Nordisk doesn't only make ozempic They also meant, you know, also like this where you get your insulin from so eat this company, we can't just burn down Novo Nordisk, at least not until we have some alternatives to some of the other things that they, you know, like people need ozempic People need those were diabetes care, it is effective in that way. But like Reagan Chastain points out that, like, you know, the, the way we get to these drugs for weight loss, specifically, is that we developed the drugs for diabetes, I'm like, Oh, my God, there's a side effect of this where people are losing weight. How can we exploit that? Right? Like, from my perspective, it is how can we exploit that? From the pharma companies perspective, they would say, how can we develop this an important tool to help our customers with their health? I mean, if you believe that great, like, companies are companies, their bottom line is the bottom line, your health is not the bottom line. big pharmaceutical companies have shown over and over again, they'll kill all the fat people if there's money to be made on the way to the US and everybody else to write like, there's like, there's a lot of if you know anything about sort of the pharmaceutical company playbook related to what led to the opioid crisis. It's a similar playbook, right? Yes. You caught the doctors, you know, you caught the doctors, you help them better understand that this is a complicated chronic disease. They shouldn't be judging their parent patients for being fat, they should be prescribing things to them. I
Vinny Welsby 48:12
said, I was saying like, in 20 years, 30 years, there's gonna be a whole documentary series, you know, movies about this being like, I can't believe they got away with it. It's so scandalous, like that one that was on Disney. I can't comment on it. There
Speaker 1 48:27
were there too. So I was I was sick in December. And while I was supposed to be resting, I made the it was a genius move on one hand, but it was sure depressing. I watched. There are too many series. They're not documentaries. There are many series. So there's some fictional but one is called dope sick. And it's. Yeah, and it's available on Hulu. And then the other one is called painkiller. It's available on Netflix. And those two, documentaries explore various aspects of how the opioid epidemic was created.
Vinny Welsby 49:02
And part
Speaker 1 49:03
of what what happens is, those drug companies work really hard to get people to think about pain differently. So they will think about prescribing for pain differently. That is the exact parallel of getting people to think about obesity as a disease versus as just a physical characteristic. And when I talk about like, when we look at the obesity numbers, we don't question enough about them. We don't first of all, we should question the designation of obesity as a disease. It is untrue for people to argue that there is no opposition to that designation. There is opposition there has always been opposition within the medical community within the scientific community about whether or not it was ever appropriate to classify obesity as a disease in the first place. But well classified like one of my favorite things to tell audiences is like the American Medical Association did that they had a committee study whether to do that for like, I think, a year. And the committee said, No, we don't think we should classify obesity as a disease. And then the American Medical Association said, Well, we do we're gonna do it anyway.
Vinny Welsby 50:11
Right that like, we're doing it by whatever.
Speaker 1 50:15
By that point, the National Institutes of Health, we're already calling it that, like the CDC calls it that the World Health Organization calls it that like, everybody now, in these systems, the organization's call it a disease, but it is false to believe that there are not people within the system and within those very organizations who think that that classification is wrong. Yeah.
Vinny Welsby 50:34
And you know, what it's given me, it's given me I made a video recently, because I do I do also dei work. So I've made a video recently about in Canada. It's been a year since conversion therapy has been banned. Yeah, in Canada, but it's giving me you know, pray the pray the gay away, you know that giving me queerness as it is a disease. queerness is a choice. queerness is a problem. It's not your fault that you're queer. But here, we've got some solutions to make room not queer, we're
Speaker 1 51:08
going to have compassion for you, as you struggle with that thing like that we have that treat you and cure you of that thing. In the case of obesity, no one actually wants to cure obesity. The money is in chronic care for as many other things that are actual diseases, or like, I don't know what other things are labeled diseases that there's like a major, you know, voice of dissent about that, because I just don't that historically about things like, you know, homosexuality being in the what is the psychology? BDSM? Yes. Yeah. You know, like, I know, things like that historically. But like in a contemporary way, I don't know what else is out there that people are like that should not be labeled a disease in the first place. When we're resistant to having fatness labeled as a disease, and then called obesity. When we're resistant to that, I don't ever want us to be like reinforcing that there's something stigmatizing about having a disease, disease, they do not deserve to be stigmatized for having the disease. The stigma is in having a disease made up and manipulated about you. Just for the purpose of profits, or because people's underlying anti fatness is what has convinced them it's a disease, not actual science, right? We're science I tell people this all the time, like we get fat liberation is get accused of being science deniers, we're not science deniers,
Vinny Welsby 52:38
I feel like we're the opposite. We
Speaker 1 52:40
want you to look at all the sides. All the sites, we want you to fund more. So I was looking at something last night, what was I looking at, I was looking at something. And it was about the idea of the obesity paradox, which is like the obesity paradox is like, for people who have heart failure, like there's a higher risk up to a certain weight, but after that weight, those people actually are more likely to survive, even though they're higher BMI. That's kind of what the obesity paradox is. And so I was looking at this research about and like, I'm a layperson, but I'm not a researcher. I'm not a scientist, I'm a layperson reading this, but I'm looking at this research about whatever the obesity paradox is real, or whether when you just it has more to do with the body composition of people in that higher weight category. And that if you have, you know, the hip to height ratio, or the waist to height ratio or whatever, if you look at it like that, instead of just as BMI, that it proves that obesity is still dangerous, right? And then like the problem with that whole argument is, but what then what your obesity is diagnosed by BMI. So your your, your research is showing that BMI is not the determining factor in whether or not heart failure is more common in larger bodied or higher weight people, that BMI is not the determining factor. But then you're using a disease that is diagnosed by BMI. To say that people with that disease go in this category of like you're saying obesity is risky as a disease, because these people who are research just showed BMI is not the factor in why they are like it's just it was like there was all kinds alluded
Vinny Welsby 54:26
to so many contradictions in the science, right. And so people were like, I did some research on the research. I did a literature review on fatness and youth in Canada. And they were like, the research was like fat kids are doing okay, and diets don't work. So the solution is we should put fat kids on diets. And I'm just like, what? All the time,
Speaker 1 54:56
all the time. And like it's like the American Medical so session last year was like BMI is terrible. We finally admitted it's, it's kind of a racist. It's really problematic. And also, it's the best tool we have available. So we're going to keep using some other tools to designate even more people as fat. Yeah, it's just like, cognitive
Vinny Welsby 55:16
isn't as much like, what is going on.
Speaker 1 55:21
Here we used to like, but also what was key in this report I was reading last night was like, the head researcher just said, we saw those numbers. And we knew that couldn't be true, because we know obesity is bad. Yeah. You didn't go in with a research question. It wasn't is obesity bad? Yeah, he wasn't. Obesity. Dangerous is obesity. Is it true that obesity is a higher risk, you know, causes a higher risk of heart failure? You didn't go into your research with that question. You went into Europe with a statement, obesity. And so we have to figure out how this research that showed that it wasn't bad is wrong, because we already know it's bad categorically across a period. Yes. That's confirmation bias, right. Confirmation bias, but it's openly stated confirmation, just as a goal of research. Yeah. And, and then there's no leg questioning of that. So and so like to get us back to the obesity Bill of Rights. There's no questioning of conflict of interest, when new shows up to say, Yeah, that's right. We believe in the obesity Bill of Rights. Well, the obesity, right Bill of Rights has some really good stuff in it. You know, what we do want? We do want MRI machines that are big enough for the biggest people, we do want that? You know, we want? Would you want your doctor to treat you with respect and care, regardless of your body size? Yeah. So they're about I think there are four points in it that I'm like, Yeah, I agree with this. But you framed this as obesity care, not care for higher weight patients.
Vinny Welsby 56:53
That's the thing is,
Speaker 1 56:54
we care for all the fat people, you frame this as how we care for all the people who are designated as being being you know, living with the disease of obesity? And then you've categorized everyone under that definition based on their body size. Yeah,
Vinny Welsby 57:08
that's why I think it's so tricky is because they sandwich it between things, which are absolutely desirable and reasonable. And then, and then they put
Speaker 1 57:19
a multimillion dollar marketing firm behind it. So they're, of course, they're smart enough to do it that way.
Vinny Welsby 57:24
Yeah. And that's why it it really, really makes me frightened because as I'm doing this, the consulting I do in diversity, equity and inclusion. That bullshit is seeping into other people who, I don't know if they should know better, but I've seen other dei consultants say, our fatness is disease and we should get that fat people have access to this stuff, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Dude, that's you're literally just parroting pharmaceutical companies talking points. And they they can't they can't see it. Because they haven't done such a good job job of tricking people into thinking it's about social justice. Yeah. And
Speaker 1 58:11
because they've done such a good job of, you know, being the puppet masters behind the scenes in for much of this time. So like even now, like Novo Nordisk is not one of the organizations that has signed on to the obesity Bill of Rights, but but the National Council on Aging they funded they fund the obesity Action Coalition. I think they fund the Obesity Society like so you don't have to show up as yourself. You don't have to show up. You don't even have to show up as a wolf in sheep's clothing. You've just hired some chickens to send them to, you know, like, you're not the wolf. You don't even have to be the wolf in the hen house. You just hire a bunch of chickens to go into the hen house for you. Yeah, and that nobody is looking like isn't there? No. Oh, I guess. I combined see I'm mixing metaphors and I combined all the barnyard animals together sheeps and chickens and wolves and whatever, but like the I you know, the thing is like, Oh, it's a fox in the henhouse, and it's a wolf in sheep's clothing. I got it. I got it. But um, but the bottom line is still there. They're the foxes and wolves. And this is not Zootopia where the fox is actually like secretly a good guy. We've just missed stereotyped him. They are. It's bad. They're the bad one. That's right. And I have no doubt that there are good people in those systems who genuinely believe that they are doing God's work in improving people's health. I have no doubt. Some of those people would change their minds if they knew more of what we know. Yet some of them would, you know, but either because they still believe it's the right way or because of their own internalized bias or because of the check that they're getting from Novo Nordisk. And this is the thing about conflicts of interest. We don't, medical organizations do not include you work thing with a pharmaceutical company as about obesity as a conflict of interest when you are doing things about obesity, it regularly happens that you will see these reports where there's a disclosure of conflict of interest statements. And there's no mention of the fact that many people who worked on the report actually get funding from a pharmaceutical company. It is people, you know, people like Reagan and other people who like do that kind of research on behalf of fat advocacy communities that go and find that out. Like, it's not like the National Council of aging was like, by the way, we get a bunch of money from Novo Nordisk. So of course, we think these diet drugs should be covered by Medicare. The I've had to look at their annual reports to see that they get money from No, no layperson person who's not, you know, spending, you know, 60 hours a week as the director of an organization about fat advocacy is looking at the annual reports of other organizations to get money from pharma. It's not about the
Vinny Welsby 1:00:57
the casino it was the aging company, and then also the National cash consumer League. Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:01:04
I didn't I didn't dig into their financials. But I mean, I, the National Consumer League, you have business interests involved in this coalition through new wastewater? I don't, I haven't, I haven't thought about that one as deeply. I've thought more about the aging stuff just because to me, part of the part of what's ridiculous to me about the aging stuff is like, Y'all are the same people who were trying to convince us that there were no fat old people. Before they get old. Same people who say stuff like, you know, you've you've never seen a bunch of fat old fat people because there aren't that many of them. Like you're this you are the same. I mean, I'm not saying that the National Council of aging or even Novo Nordisk literally said that the eye, the specter of early death, is one of the most motivating things for people, even people who have fat liberationist beliefs, when it comes to fearing for their health, because of the things that they are told, are the only possibilities in a larger body. Always they're from the trolls on the internet, who are telling you you're gonna die by 30. Hi, I'm 49. But if I die tomorrow, they're gonna be like a tiger Stein, so tragically young, and it's all because she was fat. You know, and like, so these are still like, this is a narrative that you used to not cabling. So and then they said in their, in their press release, or one of the articles that I read the, you know, they were like, we did this grassroots research, because they had these like, I think they call them town halls that they claim they had all over the country, but it looks like they had four of them. That's it's a much bigger country than four town halls, for your grassroots movement. But you know, where they talk to elders, and elders reported to them, that they feel isolated and overlooked in obesity care? Hmm, well, first of all, they feel isolated and overlooked in a lot of health care ways, in your focusing, but you don't have a million dollars of funding from those other issues. So you're not talking to them about that. Yeah. First of all, that second of all, of course, they feel isolated, because you focused all your stuff on obesity care on the people that you thought you could make the most money off of. So until you decided you wanted to go after Medicare, you weren't thinking about them. You are what you're thinking about when you're Think about who you can make the most money off of, and you're building a narrative that this is a chronic illness that will need treatment for the rest of your life. You want to get those 20 and 30 year olds, because you got 30 years of money to make. You don't the 60 year old, do you have 30 years of money make off them. And based on the narratives you've been upholding? No, you don't have any years off them if they're 60 and fat, right? You've been telling yourself that and telling us that. But now, the ripple effects of getting to treat them for two or three years. But getting to treat them through Medicare means that all the other systems have to fall in line with what Medicare is doing. So you can get that 20 or 30 year old from that poor black community that you did not care about any other time. But now that think you can get insurance to pay for what they couldn't pay for out of pocket. All of a sudden you care about them. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, you know, so it's like, Who do you believe Right? Like I tell people all this, I have this like, it feels kind of silly, but like I often use this like fried chicken analogy where like, if the leading people telling you if like leading medical associations are telling you like, fried chicken is the healthiest thing that you could eat, it will change your life, it'll create longevity, reduce the risk of strokes, it'll do all of these things. Right. And you were like, that seems interesting. Okay. And then you found out that those organizations got all their funding from KFC. Questions about that, right? You might be like, Well, why is Colonel Sanders donating $8 billion to the American Medical Association, right. But when it comes to like pharmaceuticals and obesity, and the same thing is for the weight loss surgeons, the same thing is for the other kinds of treatment programs, commercial and medical treatment programs. You just get to say you're an obesity expert. Like you just got to be Colonel Sanders being like, well, of course, I know the most about fried chicken. I'm a fried chicken expert. Yeah. And he goes like, but don't you have a conflict of interest here? No, I'm a fried chicken expert. Right? That's how it works with like, quote unquote, obesity experts is that, you know, they just get to say like, Well, I've been spending 20 years helping people fail at weight loss. Therefore I
Vinny Welsby 1:05:46
write organizations, they say, Oh, we've been around since the 80s. I'm like, you've been doing a really shit job because fat people
Speaker 1 1:05:53
still exist. What I love is like, why are why is the obesity epidemic still spreading when we're putting so much work into it? Because we're putting dumbass work into it? Just, I mean, first of all, also, it's spreading, because y'all keep changing the numbers of where people get designated as obese. So you're going to add millions of people, if you drop the BMI cut off for what obesity is. Okay, so first of all that, but then yeah, people but human bodies are changing. We are also, you know, as a species, taller than we were 300 years ago. But we're not like, oh, the height crisis. It's killing everybody. Yeah, no, I, I just I don't because we don't have we don't have a long standing cultural narrative that height is people's own fault. So we don't have a way to aid people into spending money trying to reduce their height, we do have ways to shame people into increasing their height, like we have things that we do to, you know, we have narratives and medical narratives for little people to go undergo dramatic surgeries for leg lengthening, like we have that parallel that exists, but like, but even that it's not like there are you know, there were there aren't 93 million little people in the United States. So the market is different for for, you know, an even even at even sort of like non little people short stature folks, like just your friend who's a little bit short, like, we the numbers aren't, we don't count that the same way. We don't categorize it the same way. We don't label it as disease the same way. So it's not a market in the same Yeah.
Vinny Welsby 1:07:36
Talking about Hi, I noticed in your so Nafa had a press release, which was in response to this obesity Bill of Rights. And in it you mentioned height as well as weight and how we shouldn't be stigmatizing. either. Why is the wise height pulled in? Is it because for legal grounds is easier to bring height into? Or is it because the height weight ratio for the BMI? or is there other some other connection there that you're not making? It's all
Speaker 1 1:08:11
of that stuff, actually. So we first of all, like perceptions of being fat can be related to your height. Yes. So like, you know, so when we say when we say size discrimination, we are not always talking just about literally weight discrimination, we're sometimes talking about body shape discrimination or perceptions of fat, or like accept the acceptable amount of body tone, like there's, like all these different things that we can mean when we're saying like, you know, your, your employer might be treating you unfairly because of your body size. It's not necessarily that they're putting on a scale and treating you unfairly it's they're looking at you and thinking a thing about your body. And sometimes combination of weight and height is really important to understanding that biased. But also, there are ways in which especially around physical access discrimination, right around people meeting, accessibility. Height is like a legit reason why you might need you might need reasonable accommodations in your workplace and your school and your, you know, whatever. And height in both directions. Actually, you know, if you're super tall kid, and you need something at your school, you're probably going to get it because nobody is going to be like, well, this tall kid could just go on a diet and get shorter, right? So you're probably gonna get it right. But if you didn't get it, you would need some kind of recourse for like, okay, it's there's this whatever, these deaths these attached desks at my school are impossible for me because my legs can't fold up under that because I'm too tall. So I should get a dip. They should get a different chair for me. I should have to bring my own chair right. So there are ways there are ways that height both for very tall people and for very short people. And again, not just for you People who are actually dwarves, right, who were actually little people. And in, you know, we're getting to know the LPA Little People of America. And one of the things I know is like people sometimes hear dwarves and they don't like, they like, they think I should be saying people with dwarfism, they have the same debates in their community about that. We have. So often I just mix it up in acknowledgment that they have those debates. But um, but anyway, like, you know, short statured, people who actually have dwarfism have some protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act in the United States, because that is actual medical and physical condition, like dwarfism was actually, you know, like, that's a real thing, not a made up thing that they just applied to all the short people, like obesity is epic, they apply to all the fat people. The so like, it's complicated around that community, in particular, because they do have some legal protections that just sort of a person who has less than average height does not have they don't qualify for, if you're five feet tall, but you don't have dwarfism, you don't qualify for the ADEA. And, you know, if you needed action around something, um, but so, so anyway, the height piece is important, both in terms of perceptions of body size, like perceptions of fat, and this based on, you know, if you weigh this and you're six feet tall, that's different than if you weigh this, and you're five and a half feet tall, right? It is also like body size discrimination is about all the body sizes. And even in that canyon, we know that there are ways that culturally tall people are preferenced. But in terms of access things, like if you had to drive a company car, and you were very tall, could you just not get that promotion, because they don't have a car that you fit or whatever, like, it's all still relevant, and we still want to be in solidarity. And the pushback is always about the fat people. Nobody ever shows up to testify against this bill. Because if tall people don't like the way the world treats them, they should just stay home. That's never where people get pissed. We're never gonna see like Fox News reports about the tall guy who actually asked to sit in the exit row on the planes and get some extra leg room like we're never going to see that right. And the iron is always directed at the fat people, because it is always so like, you should just change instead of the system changing for Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So. So it is like we do have to have solidarity with people who are facing body size discrimination in other ways. And we do have to acknowledge that the fire around it is always getting, you know, almost always getting directed at the fat people.
Vinny Welsby 1:12:44
Yeah, exactly.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:45
It's legislation stuff, especially.
Vinny Welsby 1:12:47
So with all of this bullshit that's going on, I just, I just felt anxious about it, you know, because I just don't want them to win. It just so do you have any advice for people to like, protect themselves from messaging from the anti fat Wolf's in sheep's clothing people? Or any any, any hope on the horizon? Because you're talking to media outlets. And you you've mentioned that there are some media outlets who are friendly to fat liberation versus Let's kill all the fat people. Some are friendly
Speaker 1 1:13:30
to racial or who are just at least professionally committed to their both sides ism going in both ways as a journalist, like what one of the things we see a lot from the media is, if anybody talks about fat rights, fat liberation, fat activism, even just fat people are human. Then somebody has to be interviewed to talk about how terrible obesity is. We don't there's no parodying there, right? There's no like, every time we run an article about how terrible obesity is, we need to talk to a fat activist who questions this paradigm. There's not that that's not a journalistic standard that exists across the industry across the media. But there are journalists who, you know, I care about exploring many sides of the issue, who are always going to look for a voice from fat activism because they know that activism exists. We are outnumbered and outgunned when it comes to we are outnumbered and outgunned if we only had to go against one of these organizations. Because these organizations have budgets in the millions. And we don't and even like the obesity Action Coalition, which is the one I know best. Is like they will talk all the time about how like we're an all volunteer organization. Okay. But when you're an all volunteer organization that has a $7 million annual budget, that is not the same as malby volunteer organization. Are you kidding me? And you have a seven you Have some million dollar budget, and you just have pharmaceutical companies doing shit for you for free. Yeah, right. So you're not even you don't even have to spend all the $7 million to do to execute things. Because when you have an annual conference, you don't have to dig all the way into your $7 million budget that came from weight loss surgeons and pharmaceutical companies and weightwatchers. Because Weight Watchers and the pharmaceutical companies are gonna sponsor the conference to on top of it, so like, I just like, the idea that we're unmatched. Right? This is not me giving hope you asked me how have you people
Vinny Welsby 1:15:33
tygris.
Speaker 1 1:15:36
Okay, so that yeah, I went, I went back into more evidence that they are terrible, but like, is spaces like this are incredibly important. And they are incredibly important for Fat people not to only recommend to other fat people. If you listen to this podcast, and you thought it was really interesting. Send it to your lefty friend who is not a fat liberationists But he's an anti capitalist. Why are there so anti capitalist who will not question the diet industry and will not will not question pharmaceutical industry when it comes to fat people. But you just said you hate like you Why do you hate Walmart but you don't hate Weight Watchers? Say that in this podcast? I'm having deja vu. I might have said that twice. But that's you didn't? Why do you hate Walmart and not hate Weight Watchers, even if you have no questions about why you don't want to lose weight, or you don't think other people should be forced to or whatever. But like Why aren't you just just interested in that as a capitalist force?
Vinny Welsby 1:16:37
You know what I think I might might my theory is that they've been convinced by all of this Tom fuckery that it's it's a social justice as you cheer fatness.
Speaker 1 1:16:49
But that's why one of the things that we can do is make sure that we are having these conversations, not just in, in fact community but with our friends who have similar values that are so rooted in our community, right? It's sort of like the what I was saying about like, even within this community, like most people don't have time to look at the annual reports of 35 organizations that are on this list and see if they got money from Novo that's most of you are not going to do that. And that's reasonable. But now that you understand that, that's how it works. You might just notice more when you see Novo mentioned or when you see, like Millie Lilly mentioned or Abbott pharmaceuticals mentioned, and like you might just notice it more, or you might at least have the questions. I think there are more people asking questions. I mean, there is, you know, there's there's some hope in the fact that the this coalition had they had a press conference at the National Press Club. And we've only seen a couple articles about this bill of rights, because that could have that could have been like, they had a press press conference at the National Press Club. And then all week long, all we saw was nothing but articles about this bill of rights.
Vinny Welsby 1:18:00
But I haven't heard about it until you told me.
Speaker 1 1:18:05
Yeah, so we hadn't. Like it's I mean, they're playing a long game. This is a thing that it's important to know about that. The pharmaceutical companies are playing a long game. This is we talked about billions of dollars. And we're talking about billions of dollars that even if they fuck up and ruin everything and get sued for that, they will still be rich people like unless they actually go to jail for shading this, they will still have their rich people lives and it'll just be a matter of scale, right? It's are they billions? Are they millionaires, right? They're not going back to the 1000 errors if they're a CEO of a pharmaceutical company, even if they get millions of dollars of fines, because they will already have made so much fucking money, that it's just like, so like, that's not where the hope is, right? But where the hope is, is that we have people creating resources like this, like we have power podcasts are powerful tools. Blogs are still powerful tools. You know, your, your tweets are, I don't know what we call them on X, I refuse to call it x. Like, with actual human beings, I will call you whatever you tell me your name is with corporations. I will call you what I want to call you know, this ain't pronouns for organizations, right? This is, you know, it's Twitter. So like, um, you know, like, there is a lot of power in that and like policymakers don't listen to tweets, but policy but tweets, but journalists listen to tweets, and then that then things get into the New York Times and public policy, listen to makers listen to that. Right. So like, here's, there's hope that there's more dialogue about this kind of things. There are people asking more critical questions. They're, you know, we have to sometimes work from a harm reduction frame point, like, There gonna get these drugs covered. Yeah, they're going to get these drugs covered. There's I don't, I'm trying to imagine all the various places in the mall. multiverse and I would like somebody to come here through a portal and show me how they did it in some other multiverse where they don't get the drugs covered. But until that happens, I can't see a way, no matter how much I have, you know, hope and abundance thinking and all that I can't see a way that these drugs do not get covered by Medicare and by the NHS. But I but what we can do is work on harm reduction in the coverage of them. And like, you know, education campaigns that help people understand the real risks of the drugs, the help people ask questions about the long term effects of the drugs, like, you know, we can do harm reduction in that way. And also, we can hopefully do harm reduction in ensuring that, you know, the bill language when these bills pass doesn't cause unintended consequences for fat people, like the intended consequence is covered these drugs and continue to cover weight loss surgery for people who won't do take the drugs, and maybe cover a little of some of the other things too. And if that means that some people get good nutritional counseling, or, you know, weight neutral therapy, or something that is positive, covered by their insurance. That's, you know, at least there's a little bit of silver lining there. But I just like calling shenanigans on the shenanigans is really important to me. Even when it does affect the ultimate outcome, because like, you don't you don't get to call this a grassroots movement. You don't get to say that you're doing intersectional social justice work with and go unchallenged. If I can't say but you know, a gnat in the ear, then at least we get we lined it up a lot more nets in their ears.
Vinny Welsby 1:21:43
Yes, and we can both be nets. And that is special.
Speaker 1 1:21:47
And in terms of protection, I think just like fat community is the self protection, getting your balls around some people who will question these things, even if they're not sure what the answers are, who will at least question the motives of these juggernauts of weight loss.
Vinny Welsby 1:22:06
And as, as and as being there as fat community for when people are recovering from taking these drugs, because because, I mean, they they give you weight loss to begin with, but a year at a year point, you're already beginning to put weight on and so being that soft place to land for people who are like, Well, that was fucked up and horrible. And we can be there for them. Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:22:31
and also, frankly, like for people who are going to lose loved ones to these kinds of drugs and procedures, you know, there's some really passionate folks in fat lib community whose passion comes from the fact that they lost people to weight loss surgery, you know, and, and, like, I would rather they have their loved ones than us have them as advocates, but they don't. We do. And, like, glad that they have us as like you said, like a soft place to land. I mean, it can be really frustrating, especially when folks kind of kind of like flounced away from community to claim these things. You know, we saw this wave at the beginning of the year of like, like, you know, influencers that were sort of like, I used to love my curvy body, but I'm trying to get there now that I can get ozempic or whatever and like, you know, okay, I mean Cool story, bro. And if that works out for you carry on and if it doesn't, you know, then we we do like I know there are a lot of people were like, and if it doesn't, then good riddance because you shouldn't burn that bridge with us. You should just with the fat community, by flouncing away to pursue intentional weight loss and also if you do that, and you fall on your face, I am not saying that you should just have like the warm welcome mat rolled back out to you automatically. I do think those are bridges that can be rebuilt when people are ready to do like a real work around rebuilding. Yeah, cuz I think like I get bounced away and then just dance on back like Hey, guys, did you miss me? Like, you gotta come with some humility, and with some and with some commitment to changing attitudes like sharing with people what you learned the hard way so that you're willing, or whatever, you got to come back with something, you can't just come back, like empty handed and sad.
Vinny Welsby 1:24:26
Because I think the reason why they flounced away is they probably have a shit ton of anti fatness, deep down in them that they've not ever looked at. And then that allure of fineness was too much to say no to and so, if they've come back and said, I've looked at my own anti fatness, then then we can be like, very good.
Speaker 1 1:24:47
And I think also like, especially for folks who are from multiple identities that experience body based discrimination. You know, that the pursuit of weight loss can feel like a way of surviving, right, it can feel like, it feels like self protection. I mean, it can feel like that for everybody. But especially if you've got it coming at you from a bunch of different directions, you've got racism, or you've got anti trans, you know, everything coming at you, from the government on down or you've got, you know, anti queer stuff or whatever that you are dealing with. And ableism, you know, that we disabled people get told all the time that if they would lose some weight, their disability would magically cure itself, even when that's 100% Impossible. But like, you know, there's all these ways where like, the promise of weight loss might not be just about vanity, it might actually, it might be about sort of like socio cultural privilege, but actually, like, I think this makes or breaks the difference between whether I make it to the next year. I, we know that, more often than not, it doesn't actually do that. But I think succumbing to it, for those reasons is a little bit different than the people who just like, want to wear cute clothes, or whatever, right, is different. And in the end, you know, do you want to if you want to be part of community, you have to be part of community in ways that are not harming the rest of the community. So if you go to pursue this magical dream, and the and it all crashes and burns, you can't come back here with your toxic knus you have to detox before you come, you know, like, or, like, you have to come in and contain spaces where there are people who are willing to help you detox or whatever. But I do think that, you know, I mean, I might have, you know, just on a sort of like, individually, just like I was telling you about Toby Keith earlier today, like, I don't generally like cheer when people die. Like, you know, just that guy, yay. And then like, ultimately, like where my values actually are, it's like, I wish he had lived and redeemed himself and stop being a racist, and bla bla bla bla bla, but he didn't so yay. But like, also, he wasn't part of my community. For folks who are, I've been in community with. And they do a different thing than what I would do or what I think I would do or what I like to think I would do. And then they want to come back into community. You know, their mind might have that pity moment of like, Oh, I see Oh, here you come, you know, cool. So, um, and also, some of them may get back in because they're coming back and acting like assholes, you know, knocking at the door, I feel like an asshole you're stepping on the side of the door. But I do think that there are folks that we can we can be that soft space for, you know, really like healing way that then ultimately builds community. Right. So. But I think and I think that is where some of the beauty lies is like, and for the rest of us who just stay in community and experience the beauty. Right? It's what we talked about at the top of the hour about like being at Fat con and what that felt like, we can generate those feelings in so many other spaces. And that is the armor against those if it goes if it goes if it goes if it goes epic, yes. You're in a space where you don't have to hear that all
Vinny Welsby 1:28:02
the time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Tigris, how can people support you and NASA
Speaker 1 1:28:09
if you have money given money, right, like, let's be coy about that, if you have money to give, whether that's $3 $300 $3,000 I mean, if you got $30,000, please holler at me immediately, but like, you know, if you, if you have money, give it to us. And if NASA is not the right fat activist space for you to give it to find the one that is or find the fat mutual aid that you can support or whatever, like give money and community support, you know, the businesses that support us. And, and, and, you know, and the Patreon of people that support us and the like, all of you know, in all the ways and again, especially for folks who are fat and also facing those other kinds of discrimination. For us, if you want to give to NASA, you can do that through our website, nasa.org/give an A F A dot o RG slash give and, you know, follow us on social media engage with our content, you know, likes to get likes comments, you know, get joggers algorithm. You know, it's the trolls get bigger and more consistent, and the more we drown out their voices with voices of love and support, then the safer and more encouraging. Our online spaces are in fact community. So we're Nafa official on most of the things we are most active on Instagram, but we are you know, we're on most of the other things that you love, and we'll hopefully soon be on some of the ones we're not we're not really on tick tock. We're not really on tick tock. But, but we are working on that for this year. And I think we will have some tick tock presents this year. But we're never official on all of the things if you see an ad for something else that is not us, there is another organization. I think it's a I think it's a firearms organization. That is oh, that us, we have not shifted the platform. If you want to follow me personally, I'm I'm also most active on Instagram. But same thing like I'm on all the things, I'm just not that accurate on the other ones. My handle is I have, do people still say handle is yes at my thing. My, my name on Instagram is I have the Tigris letter I O. F. The Tigris? And, and yeah, I think that's and you know, sign up for our newsletter, how Oh, and definitely We didn't talk as much about legislation as I do in some other settings. But we are working, you know, together with our colleagues at flair, the fat legal advocacy rights and education project. We co founded the campaign for size, Freedom last year, we got some support from dove in doing that. And you know, like see, we just say who our corporate partners are, you don't have to go read, you know, research that's online to find out who our corporate partners are. And if you have questions about dove, ask us those questions. I have questions about that. And I ask them those questions. So it's a little different than those Novo relationships with and weightwatchers relationships with other quote unquote, advocacy organizations. But I digress. We, the campaign for science freedom works to uplift the conversation around passing legislation to outlaw size discrimination. And, and then to support the passage of that legislation by supporting local organizers who are working on that legislation. So this year, we'll be you know, supporting legislation in New York at the state level, as many of you listeners probably know, New York City passed some legislation last year, but New York level, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, which I think will be the next state, I think I My money is on Massachusetts to be the next state to pass anti discrimination legislation based on body size. And so that will be something certainly to celebrate, it's fine. I think it's gonna happen in Massachusetts this year, I mean, knock on all the things or whatever you do for good vibes. But and, and also, possibly a couple more states this year, there are some things brewing in some places. There is a anti wait bullying bill in Colorado that we will also help support. So and we expect Colorado next year, possibly still this year, but definitely next year, to introduce like a fuller scale civil rights bill. But right now we know for sure that there will be a bill against weight bullying in schools. So that is a great way to protect fat kids. So anyway, all of that stuff is on our website, under the campaign for size freedom tab, where we also have a petition that you can sign and if you sign the petition, and give us permission to contact you, then when we start doing work in your area, or we hear about local organizers doing work in your area, we will let you know. All of the ways that's you know, that's all, I think that's all of the ways to find me. You can see all of our old Nafa webinars on our YouTube channel, which is also naffaa official. And we've just interviewed some like really amazing people over the years. You know, I do the webinars show, Marcy Cruise does our fashion show. We have other kinds of special events. But we've had everybody from, you know, from Dijon, Harrison to Dr. Sean Cooper, you know, we've like we just had a wide wide range of scholars and activists and artists, Mary Lambert and and you know, our last one was with comedians Nikki Bailey and Chris grace, like, we just have really fantastic people who come and talk to us about being in their fat bodies and then just doing the badass stuff that they do. And and people can watch like, those are all free on our YouTube channel.